These rules are dafter than believing in Xenu; A councillor's tweet
against Scientology has exposed the draconian curbs that can be
imposed on elected officials

Daniel Finkelstein. The Times. London (UK): Jul 28, 2010. pg. 19

Iam about to tell you a story that you will find hard to believe. I
know because, when I first read it, I found it hard to believe. But it
is, I promise you, true. Every word. Here goes. At 4.25pm on May 9,
2009, a man named John Dixon was walking down Tottenham Court Road in
Central London when he decided to send a Twitter message on his mobile
phone.

Mr Dixon liked to do this from time to time, sending messages to a few
friends who had elected to follow the tweets that he posted. He had
just told them that he was on his way to collect his wedding ring,
having, one message earlier, informed them of his excitement at
finding a cheap loaf of bread in the supermarket. His messages, in
other words, weren't of much consequence. They came, passed through
the Twitter system and, within a few hours, were gone again.

Things turned out rather differently with his next Tweet. As he passed
a branch of the Church of Scientology, he sent his friends the
following message: "Didn't know there was a Scientology 'church' on
Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off."
However quickly he hurried past, however, it turned out not to have
been fast enough.

There's one more thing you need to know about John Dixon. He is a
councillor sitting on Cardiff Council and those who follow him on
Twitter, or come across any of his tweets, know this because he tweets
under the name cllrjohndixon. And this, presumably, is how a
Scientologist from East Grinstead -- obviously not a constituent or a
friend, just someone who had googled the word Scientology -- tracked
him down and knew how to proceed against him.

Scientologists don't much like criticism and, famously, many are
aggressive in using the legal system. And the law presented an avenue
down which to pursue Mr Dixon. Over the past decade a series of
statutory instruments, legislation and new bodies have been created in
an attempt to ensure that local councillors do not engage in corrupt
practices. Mr Dixon's googler thought he would have a go at
complaining.

This is where the rather prosaic story becomes hard to believe, and
introduced me to an issue that I was scarcely aware of. It can be hard
to pin down the theology of Scientologists, but according to one
account (pieced together by the Los Angeles Times) they believe that
75 million years ago a tyrant named Xenu ruled the Galactic
Confederation, an alliance of 76 planets, including Earth, then called
Teegeeack.

To solidify his power, Xenu instructed his loyal officers to capture
beings of all shapes and sizes from the various planets, freeze them
in a compound of alcohol and glycol and fly them by the billions to
Earth in aircraft resembling DC8s. Some of the beings were captured
after being duped into showing up for a phoney tax investigation.

The Scientologists may be right on the money with this Xenu stuff, of
course, but it doesn't seem to me that it is a breach of any code of
conduct to advance the hypothesis that it is stupid.

It turns out that the Public Service Ombudsman for Wales does not
agree with me. The code of conduct that councillors are expected to
follow may have been designed to stop them fiddling their expenses and
accepting money for support in planning applications and suchlike. But
it has been drawn much wider than that. Councillors are expected to
treat the public with respect, to ensure that they are not rude when
carrying out their duties and that they are not behaving in a way that
might bring their office into disrepute.

Reviewing the case, the ombudsman decided that, because Mr Dixon had
posted on a social networking site, and because he called himself a
councillor, and because using the word "stupid" is not respectful, he
should be referred to the monitoring officer of Cardiff Council so
that its standards committee can consider the finding that Mr Dixon
may have brought his office into disrepute.

Breathtaking, to use the word employed by the legal blogger Jack of
Kent who made me aware of this case.

But not, I discovered as I delved deeper, the only breathtaking part
of the story by any means. The legislation that led to the absurd
finding against Mr Dixon has, naturally enough, led to thousands of
complaints costing millions of pounds, most of the time about
basically nothing.

Most seriously of all they have led to the creation of increasingly
baroque regulations restricting the freedom of councillors.

Let's say that a concrete car park is to be built in the middle of
your local park. You decide to stand for the council, promising to
speak out against the car park. You win. But then, guess what? You
find that it is a breach of the code for you to speak or vote on any
issue relating to the car park. You have "a prejudicial interest" in
the matter, and are therefore barred.

This need not involve only planning matters. You could be barred from,
say, speaking against the council's decision to contract out its
swimming pools if you had told voters in advance that you were against
it.

This really happens. All the time. Honestly. It is a rare example in
politics of something that actually is as crazy as it sounds. Crazy
and dangerous. The Dixon ruling and the "prejudicial interest" policy
are a direct assault on freedom of expression, one that impacts on
elected officials and restricts democracy.

The coalition partners both agree that things have gone too far.
Laudably they plan to do away with the standards board that regulates
these codes of conducts and intend to legislate to prevent use of the
prejudicial interest bar. This is very welcome. But I don't think that
it will prove as easy as that.

To read the Dixon ruling is to be astonished that a public official
could rule against a councillor for expressing his or her opinion on a
matter of public interest. To follow the course of the prejudicial
interest rule is to be amazed as to how a sensible piece of guidance
(don't vote if your personal interests are bound up with the decision)
has turned into a mad and sinister one (don't vote or speak if you
have told your voters how you intend to vote).

Both come down to our not having, in this country, America's freedom-
of-speech culture, in which the right to free expression trumps all.
And that will be harder to introduce than a new law or two.

daniel.finkelst...@thetimes.co.uk OpEd Live, from 1pm Watch David
Aaronovitch explain his concerns about the WikiLeaks thetimes.co.uk/
opinion

Bringing in a culture of free speech will take more than a new law

Credit: Daniel Finkelstein
[Illustration]
Caption: Hurry past, don't upset them: the Scientology church on
Tottenham Court Road; REX FEATURES